What We Seek, We Shall Find
by Fr4Nc0
Summary: "Had we, in our murderous rampage, unknowingly started to slay our comrades, unable to discern between friend and foe?" A soldier's thoughts as he takes part in the last battle of the war. Read and review.


It's hot. It's hot as hell. Stray dogs roam freely around the streets of this dilapidated town. Feeble and infirm houses line the dusty pathways. I'm

in a shitty patch of dirt, better known as "park". All it has is a couple of frail benches and a rundown set of swings. No trees, or anything green, for

that matter, on sight. The villagers blame the eternal heat that seems to curse these lands, but I know better. For as long as I can remember,

nothing's ever grown in this hell. I stumbled upon this ghost town many years ago, thinking I was running away from the past. But there is no

outrunning the past. It'll always find a way to catch up with you, and make you pay for all your troubles. I lived alone, feeding off the little food that

remained in the houses. The town must have been abandoned shortly before I found it. I was lucky. But then, one day, a group of people showed

up.

They couldn't have been more than a dozen. _Survivors. _That's what they said they were. I pitied them. Pitied them for surviving, just like I pitied

myself. They told stories of Death Eaters storming the ministry. Wizards executed in Diagon Alley. They told me of our world's last stand, led by a

raven-haired young man, in mythical Hogwarts. But I knew. Of course I knew. I was there when everything went to hell. I was there. And I should

still be there, buried underneath all the rubble, just like they are.

* * *

_The night is dark, yet it is lit ominously by the fires caused by the enemy. The flames drench the battlefield in a sinister glow, making the shadows seem_

_all the blacker. The trees are scorched and the earth is red. The ground is littered with butchered men, some are writhing in agony, most are silent. The _

_battle is over, there are no enemies left to fight. Still wary of letting my guard down, and still shivering from the cold, I look around. Some wizards have _

_looks of uncertainty in their faces, others still shout obscenities, swishing and flicking their wands madly. Some swing their weapons ruthlessly, _

_unknowingly tearing into flesh that has already gone cold. And then I see her, a glimmer of light in this moment of darkness, and everything is right with _

_the world. There are no more maddened warriors screaming, no more distorted bodies moaning for help. It's just me and her. And we kiss, and the kiss _

_seems to go on forever, our swollen lips and bloodied tongues dancing the war away. The battle is over. The light has surely won. No more "buts" and _

_"ifs". This is the now. It is time to stop worrying. It is time to start living._

_And then all hell breaks loose. The glimmer of hope has been quashed in its infancy. The fires return with a vengeance. Spells soar past our heads. The _

_battle starts again, more urgent and terrifying than ever. This time I know what I am fighting for: the feeling I had in my stomach as I kissed her. I _

_promise myself that feeling would return to me before the night was over. This time we fight together, desperately inching towards the safe haven of the _

_castle. I determine myself to not let her out of my sight again. We would not become separated._

_My hand twitches and another enemy falls. I no longer know what spells I am casting, or even if my enemies are being felled by my own wand. With a _

_fleeting sense of despair I realize that I can't tell enemies from allies anymore. All men look the same drenched in blood, vomit and every vile substance _

_imaginable. Had we, in our murderous rampage, unknowingly started to slay our comrades, unable to discern between friend and foe? My thoughts are _

_rewarded with a hex that catches my left leg. I can't bring myself to feel any pain, and I plough along, navigating a sea of enemies, paying as much _

_attention to my enemies' movements as I paid attention to her._

_At some point we make it to the castle. It is no safe haven, however. If anything, the fighting at the castle is even more vicious than the fighting outside. _

_We keep fighting, desperately looking for a place where the fighting has stopped. Neither of us can fight any longer, and our objective has gone from _

_winning the battle to one much more cowardly, but human at the same time, to survive. She screams at me to hurry along, she is waiting for me at the _

_end of a corridor. No enemies separate me from safety now. When I make it to the doors, we will hide from the remainder of the battle. I can't bring _

_myself to care about the outcome anymore. Deep down, I know I am being a coward, but if I both of us survive the battle, it will all be worth it. I am not a _

_hero. That's someone else's job. I was never meant to be a hero. I was only meant to provide all the assistance I could give, and I've already given this _

_cause my all. It's time for us to leave the war behind._

_She's yelling and screaming at me now. She tells me to hurry up. I am only 50 feet away from the door, but the distance seems endless. It is then that I _

_realize I'm limping, and my leg is bleeding profusely. There is a skirmish at the other end of the corridor and unless I start moving faster, they might catch _

_up with me. I panic, I try to run, but I trip. She rushes to my side, I get up and we start inching slowly towards freedom. 35 feet away and I can already _

_see it. We are living in a big house. I am in the backyard, teaching my little kid how to properly ride a broom. He's gonna be a quidditch player, just like his _

_father, I know it. No, he will be better than I ever was. He's gonna be a star. I pick up my pace just a little. Only 20 feet away now, and it's clearer than _

_ever. Her father is walking her down the aisle, and she looks beautiful. All our friends are present. Now we're dancing. She leads, of course, since I can't _

_dance very well. Everyone starts joining. I dance with my mother, she dances with her father. I feel like I've danced with a thousand different people, but _

_eventually, we find each other again, and it feels right. It is right. Only 15 feet to go, and the future seems closer than ever, just beyond the reach of my _

_fingertips._

_And then the world stops in its tracks._

_A red curse soars past our heads, and sends the roof crashing down in front of us. There is no escape. On one end, piles upon piles of rubble mount, _

_blocking our escape way. On the other end, three masked men with feral smiles closing in. I send a curse their way, they block it. She aims a cutting hex _

_at one of them. They respond in kind. I wince. My spell blocked one hex, but the other one caught me squarely on my right shoulder. My wand arm is now _

_useless. Two seconds later I find myself disarmed. I look at her. She looks at me. We both know, deep down, that the end is near. We refuse to accept our _

_fate. With renewed vigor, she attacks them with all she's got, which is no small amount, while I try to find my wand amidst the debris. I find it, and turn _

_around just in time to see a cutting hex miss her throat by mere millimeters. I lose my temper. For the first time in my life, I use the killing curse. It feels _

_liberating, exhilarating, a cathartic experience that for one fleeting moment, brings me peace. A feminine howl leaves the mouth of one of the other Death _

_Eaters. All four of us are still for a moment, contemplating what just happened. It is only for a moment, however, and soon I find myself being attacked _

_with a barrage of spells and curses once again. This time, however, I can feel myself being overpowered. Is the pain of loss stronger than fear of the _

_same? It appears so, as I suddenly feel a burst of power, and she is thrown backwards into the rubble and I am left to fend for myself. Two against one. I _

_have no chance. I know I will die. But I fight on with every ounce of strength I have left. I fight for all that I believe in. A lucky spell leaves my wand and _

_now its one against one, but I am exhausted and the woman is a much more skilled duelist than me. We hurl curses at each other, both of us fighting for _

_what we believe in. As we duel, I come to realize that she thinks she is fighting for the light, and I'm the evil one. To her, Voldemort is the chosen one, _

_and Harry Potter is the Dark Lord. This unnerves me. What if they are right? What if after all, our ideals are misguided, and they are right? What if I've _

_been backing the wrong cause this whole time? I lose my concentration for one second, and that's enough for her, who hurls a particularly nasty Reducto _

_curse my way, and it hits the right side of my stomach. I can't feel anything, but I can still see what she's done to my body. Blood covers the floor and my _

_hands. I don't know if the blood in my hands is my own, though. I'm not even completely sure the blood in the floor is coming from my stomach. Are _

_those my intestines I see spilling out? I hope not. I start feeling an intense pounding in my ears and behind my eyes. My vision blurs. Death doesn't _

_seem like such a bad thing anymore. She is inching towards me slowly, but surely. She is gonna exact her revenge now. I killed that man, and now she is _

_gonna kill me. She has a murderous smile in her face. For some unknown reason, she lets her guard down, and that's all I need. With the last ounce of _

_strength I can summon, I stun her._

_And then it hits me. She is still under the rubble. She may or may not be alive. I do not know. Desperately, and with as much speediness as a _

_half-disemboweled man can summon, I make my way towards her. All that is visible of her dust-covered body is her hand. With a strength of which I did _

_not consider myself capable, I manage to free her, she is still alive. Barely. She opens her eyes slightly. She squints. I don't think she recognizes me. But _

_then she smiles, and I know that she knows who I am. I know that she remembers. _

_"It's gonna be fine. We'll make it out of here. I swear to god, you will not die. Not today" I say._

_"It wasn't supposed to be this way, was it?" She manages to say, "We were supposed to grow old together"_

_"We will, don't give up just yet, help is on its way" I whisper. I do not know what to say, for I know her end is near, I can see it in her eyes. Her eyes _

_show no fear._

_"I'm dying," she says. Her voice is a soft murmur. She takes my left hand with her right. I wince. Her hand is cold. _

_"So am I," I say._

_How I wish I believed my own words._

_"No, you're not. You'll live. I know it" She says. I say nothing. Maybe she saw it in my eyes as well?_

_We say nothing for what seems like hours. It might as well have been seconds. There are no words left to say. Nothing has been left unsaid. Then, _

_suddenly, she gasps for air. I hold her while she takes her last breaths. Every breath she takes feels like a thousand hot knives twisting inside me. I hold _

_her, and I can feel her life slipping through my fingers. I'm helpless. She looks into my eyes one last time. Then, she was still. And like that, she became _

_just a sweet memory._

_I held her still body for what seemed like hours. And then I look around. I'm lying on a pool of blood. A severed arm rests a few feet away from my head. _

_And I wonder if this was a battle worth fighting. I wonder whether the world that allowed this to happen is one worth saving. And then I weep. I weep not _

_for my loss but for that of all humanity. We have allowed this to happen. In this war there are no victors, for one side will lose its life and the other its _

_soul. I look at her and I envy her. I envy her because she will not have to live in this world. A world not worth saving. A world that will be consumed by _

_darkness either way._

_And then as through the fog I hear my name being called and footsteps rushing towards my side. The pounding in my ears and the throbbing headache _

_that accompanies it have not yet receded. I have seen too much death today. I look at her one last time. My eyes close tiredly, as though trying to _

_prevent myself from seeing more horrors. But in the end, it doesn't matter. Our lives are so fleeting. My spirit will meet hers one day. What couldn't be in _

_this life will be in the next. That is my last thought, as the darkness invading the edges of my vision takes me completely._

_

* * *

_

I open my eyes. It's getting dark and I'm still sitting on this rundown bench. I fell asleep again. The dreams…they are not half as bad as they used

to be. There are a couple of kids on the swings. They look like they're having fun. They don't know what I know. They haven't seen what I've seen.

If they had seen half the things I've seen or done half the things I've done, there would be no childish laughs coming out of their mouths. And I

can't help but wonder what will become of them in 20 years. Is the next Dark Lord among the playing children? Or perhaps the kid laughing at that

redhead's antics is the next chosen savior of the world. I ponder these thoughts for a few minutes. Then I get up, and I slowly make my way

towards my house, one of the many houses lining the dusty streets. I have been waiting for 50 years. I'm starting to grow weary. But maybe

tonight will be the night I go to meet her.


End file.
